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Posted: Mon Oct 08, 2012 6:37 pm Post subject: Do you have any arcades near you?

Does anybody frequent a cool arcade? There are no good ones in Alaska at all. There are places that happen to have arcade cabinets, like a few movie theaters and a gas station/cafe near me. But these places don't really care about the quality of their arcades at all. And they're targeted toward kids and lazy parents, obviously.

There actually was a sports bar near me with a small arcade room but they changed owners and probably renovated and I haven't been there since. I wonder if they still have the arcade... I think they had Golden Tee.

Anyway, point of the story, I'm opening a bar arcade in Anchorage. Who wants to invest.

Arcades have became obsolete, the only ones that are around are places like Playdium and Dave and Busters, and I hear even those places are struggling.

Don't mean to piss in your corn flakes. I would love to own an arcade, but it would need more than just video games to draw in enough people. Like a place with go-karts, paintball, a few rides, pool tables, air hockey, table tenis, a skating rink, a haunted house, a petting zoo... ok maybe not a petting zoo.

No, it's my imaginary establishment and I'm sticking with a petting zoo, where you pet the animals and they pet you back.

Yeah, the only places that last are barcades, because no one wants to go to arcades. Everyone just says "I love arcades" but then never goes.

I've got a nickel arcade I go to a lot. Used to go twice a month because it was by the place my mom needed to go for medical stuff, but now I go less since I don't live in that city anymore. Most of the machines are half broken, but I can still spend hours there and it only costs like 5 bucks total._________________

Actually.... there are SEVERAL excellent arcades near me. Some I'm certain people know nothing about. Pizza places, hobby stores, and then there's also the Chuck E Cheese flagship... store?

Fuck, I should run around and document all of these places. Also several movie theaters have great arcade set ups around here. If you know where to look, you can find tons and tons of places to waste your laundry change. So few dedicated arcades exist anymore, you kind of have to hop around.

There's one at the Beaver Valley Mall here, but everybody knows saving those tickets for a cheap little prize isn't worth it any more. At my movie theatres, there's a couple of cabinets._________________

Yeah, there's a pretty okay arcade at the major mall here. They switch out the fighting games fairly frequently, and I was sad when they took out all of the street fighter machines... and replaced them with something that I don't remember. I mean, they left ONE, but what's the point in that? You want all eight machines.

They also have a pac man machine, which is nice for my friends who don't/won't play much else apart from that and rhythm games.

They also have a photo sticker booth that'll make you drop $8. Ridiculous.

They used to have a Playdium in this same mall, Wicked, and that was cool with all their VR motion squiggly doo thingys, but it was way too expensive for the time it was there, and it died out with the Rainforest Cafe that was next to it. The reason why this new arcade does well though, I think, is because it realizes that everyone going there now is a rich asian kid, so they can reliably cater to that.

I usually just wait for the PNE/Playland fair to be open in the summer and waste time there on free admission day. Otherwise, Gauntlet Legends at the movie theatre is good with me. _________________I sprinkle sand into the waters of night. The grains burn as they fall, reminding me of another in times long passed away. I watched him even then as he fell, his face undefeated, his eyes still proud.

I had a client who opened a Family Fun Center (roller rink, bowling, laser tag, arcade) he said that the arcade was where he lost the most money.

That being said, I lived near a Nickel Arcade that was amazing. Went on many a date there. Girls love when you have skeeball skills. The one thing that fascinated me at Nickelcades was when people would be like "two nickels? Forget that...that's way to much."_________________

"Barcades" have been popping up in big cities lately, so I guess that makes it a "thing" now. Craft brews plus old school arcade games. That sort of thing. Here in Chicago we have two of them. No, I haven't gone yet, but maybe I will go and give a debriefing._________________Less talk, more monkey!

We had a couple of arcades near by called Pocket Change but they went out of business years ago. The closest arcade now is Dave & Busters but that's about an hour drive from the house.

After a while I got desperate and decided to build an arcade machine. I've got an X-Arcade Tankstick and the X-Tension cabinet for it. Put a cheap PC tower in it, some speakers and an old monitor. Overall, it cost me a little over $1,000 to build but it was very much worth it. It runs emulators pretty good and with MAME you have a massive amount of arcade games. It's not perfect but it's close. Plus it's saved me several thousands of dollars in quarters since I built it.

We used to have some arcades here back in the day but they're gone now. Now the only arcades that exist are generally a few arcade machines to compliment an area, e.g. the movie theater, take out places etc. There are no real "arcades" anymore._________________Check out GameRevolution's weekly web comic "GR Strips" - http://www.gamerevolution.com/comics/

We had a couple of arcades near by called Pocket Change but they went out of business years ago. The closest arcade now is Dave & Busters but that's about an hour drive from the house.

After a while I got desperate and decided to build an arcade machine. I've got an X-Arcade Tankstick and the X-Tension cabinet for it. Put a cheap PC tower in it, some speakers and an old monitor. Overall, it cost me a little over $1,000 to build but it was very much worth it. It runs emulators pretty good and with MAME you have a massive amount of arcade games. It's not perfect but it's close. Plus it's saved me several thousands of dollars in quarters since I built it.

Your build sounds awesome. Do you have any pics? What references did you use to guide you?

We had a couple of arcades near by called Pocket Change but they went out of business years ago. The closest arcade now is Dave & Busters but that's about an hour drive from the house.

After a while I got desperate and decided to build an arcade machine. I've got an X-Arcade Tankstick and the X-Tension cabinet for it. Put a cheap PC tower in it, some speakers and an old monitor. Overall, it cost me a little over $1,000 to build but it was very much worth it. It runs emulators pretty good and with MAME you have a massive amount of arcade games. It's not perfect but it's close. Plus it's saved me several thousands of dollars in quarters since I built it.

Your build sounds awesome. Do you have any pics? What references did you use to guide you?

I do have some pics, I'll try to remember to upload one within the next few days if I can remember to. I built the cabinet from a kit however I had to look up how to configure the emulators which was pretty easy. I used YouTube for that. I'm gonna add a few links, one is the kit and the other is the control panel. I was surprised at how easy it was to do. The task was somewhat daunting at first but once you get the swing of things it's not too bad. The big thing is just keeping everything up to date.
If you want some more info, feel free to PM me.

I have worked for many many LAN PC gaming rooms and visited console gaming rooms and every single one of them has eventually went out of business._________________“I do like metaphorical heroin and my heroin dealer. EA”

^ That's a shame Sourdeez. I always thought having a pub/bar/cafe with video games would make for a cool business, but I can see why and how they may go out of business, fair enough aye._________________Check out GameRevolution's weekly web comic "GR Strips" - http://www.gamerevolution.com/comics/